I've been mostly focusing on reading because I had a good method of inputting cards in anki. Now I want to focus on being able to understand from listening to audio better and to also speak better. I passed the N4 last year so I have some listening skills but they're not that great. I tried listening to podcasts but it's not very helpful. What I'm looking for is something that I can use with anki or maybe some other method I don't know about?

I've heard people recommend shadowing. You could listen and repeat sentences from something like core, or nayr's deck. There's audio tracks of sentences buried somewhere in buonapartes links thread as well. I'm still focusing on reading, so I haven't tried this method, but it's what i'll be doing when I'm ready for it.

subs2srs dude. It was amazing for me. Throw a 2 or 3 episodes of a drama in anki with that and then watch the whole series a couple of times. It worked great for me when I was trying to level up into more big boy material but was still scared to do it completely raw.

I find that sub2srs gets repetitive. You can do the same thing with just the show and Japanese subtitles, and get a greater variety in the long run. Find a show, listen to it raw, then listen to it with subtitles. Study what you don't know - look up the grammar, add the unknown vocab to your SRS deck. Listen a couple more times, then move on.

As your Japanese advances, you can focus on just re-listening to those parts of a show that you don't understand well. I use Any Video Converter (http://www.any-video-converter.com/produ...ideo_free/) to extract smaller clips from larger shows, selecting the snippets I want to work on. I then convert them for viewing on an iPad, and watch them whenever I have a few spare minutes to study.

Any good drama recommendations to start with? Those that have subtitles in Japanese available?

Of recent dramas I've watched, I'm Home seems to be not too complicated. I started with anime, though, so I'm not a good guide for easy to tackle dramas; perhaps others have recommendations. Beyond that, I'd start with the extensive Japanese subs index on d-addicts.com (https://www.d-addicts.com/forums/page/su...d#Japanese), and check out a few shows until you find something you like. At N4/N3 level, most TV shows are still going to be difficult. There will be tons of unknown grammar and vocab. I'd recommend finding something you really want to understand and knocking out the unknowns one by one.

Originally I used JapanesePod101 (back in 2009) as a bit of a bridge before just going for regular radio/TV immersion.

You might want to consider a service like Lingq instead though. It has a good amount of content, and isn't methodologically wedded to a classroom-esque key-words/grammar point/dialogue framework. Just a variety of interesting text in the language, with sound, and database support for learning words directly via their text (creating "links".

Have to disagree with gaiaslastlaugh on that one a bit.
If your only goal is listening then sure, that might be better - but if you are also learning vocabulary at the same time subs2srs is definitely the way to go. Subs2srs cards stick much better than simple vocabulary cards - adding the words to a separate vocab deck when subs2srsing would be just as easy seems like a waste.

Aikynaro Wrote:Have to disagree with gaiaslastlaugh on that one a bit.
If your only goal is listening then sure, that might be better - but if you are also learning vocabulary at the same time subs2srs is definitely the way to go. Subs2srs cards stick much better than simple vocabulary cards - adding the words to a separate vocab deck when subs2srsing would be just as easy seems like a waste.

I see your point, and for OP, this may be the way to go. My point was that a mature subs2srs deck with thousands of cards in it usually takes upwards of an hour to get through. I only have about one to two hours on some days to watch Japanese TV, so this sucks up most of that time. The result is that I end up with a backlog of shows I'd love to watch, but have no time for.

gaiaslastlaugh Wrote:My point was that a mature subs2srs deck with thousands of cards in it usually takes upwards of an hour to get through.

You could always suspend the easier cards and/or start the cards out with long initial intervals to significantly reduce the time spent on the deck. There's no reason you need to study every single card in a subs2srs deck according to anki's default algorithm.

yogert909 Wrote:

gaiaslastlaugh Wrote:My point was that a mature subs2srs deck with thousands of cards in it usually takes upwards of an hour to get through.

You could always suspend the easier cards and/or start the cards out with long initial intervals to significantly reduce the time spent on the deck. There's no reason you need to study every single card in a subs2srs deck according to anki's default algorithm.

Funny you posted this - I just found your post on an older thread (http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?p...#pid214396) about setting different step settings for new cards. I hadn't considered lengthening review intervals either. Hmmm, looks like I need to fool around with some Anki hacking...

learningkanji Wrote:I've been mostly focusing on reading because I had a good method of inputting cards in anki. Now I want to focus on being able to understand from listening to audio better and to also speak better. I passed the N4 last year so I have some listening skills but they're not that great. I tried listening to podcasts but it's not very helpful. What I'm looking for is something that I can use with anki or maybe some other method I don't know about?

When I lived in Japan I got to be pretty good at speaking. By this I mean that I was able to fluently use what I knew in a conversation, and have comparatively long conversations. I attribute this to 2 things:

1. 1-1 lessons with a teacher. Good teachers are masters at knowing when to correct you, when to let a mistake slide, know what grammer and vocab you should know and be using, being patient, knowing when to push you, etc. That formed by "base".

2. Finding Japanese people who had no interest or ability in speaking English to me, and socializing and conversing with them as much as possible. Thru this I overcame the natural shyness about making mistakes, because communicating thru Japanese was the only way to communicate.

Now that I don't live in Japan, speaking is less of a priority. If you wanted to replicate what worked for me in Japan, though, something like the professional and informal tutors on italki might be easiest.

Most of my speaking now is with language partners during a language exchange group. I tend to bring grammar points that I recently learned in class, and try to create example sentences with them with my partner. That helps me to internalize the grammar points.

@OP
I just started using 日本語総まとめN1：聴解 recently. I've only done the first couple of days, but it seems like it'll be a good way to do structured listening practice. Even at N1, it started by making you check your ability to understand the spoken word by determining where there was a っ in a word and whether a word had おう vs.　おお (or similar). I assume the lower levels of this series have this as well, since it's only one day's worth (the first two pages).
The only other section I've done so far was basic listening comprehension.
I'll try to remember to update when I've gotten further into the book.

As for speaking, I've only improved through conversation practice with my tutor. Frankly, it was nerve racking and embarrassing at first, because I sucked so much (and I still do); I'm finally getting over myself now though, so it has become much more productive. It has also helped my listening, since I really hate asking her to repeat herself (especially if it's more than once).

For general production, what I've seen people do, and what I plan to try sometime, is to go through various words and grammar and try to use them. Nothing particularly complex (though that would be good to try as well), just a sentence or two at a time (a few of these per concept though, depending on how well they grasped it previously).

I've made a subs2srs deck for a couple of anime episodes, but I haven't actually used it yet, so I can't comment on how well it works, but it seems like a good idea, if you can find stuff you want to use with it.

@ariariari
Not trying to start anything, but I really want to ask: why is it that, despite using proper spelling, grammar, and punctuation throughout your post, you spell 'through' as 'thru'? It's really jarring when it's the only thing you seem to abbreviate in your writing (granted, I find unnecessarily abbreviated text to be jarring anyway).
Just curious.

(edit) Oh, and a relevant question as well, if you don't mind: when doing speaking practice with a tutor, was there any specific exercises or techniques you used that helped? Or maybe a structure you used?

Thanks for the advice here, folks - by suspending older cards and increasing my time until a card goes out of learning mode (increasing the steps), I feel MUCH better about using Anki, particularly for subs2srs. I retract my initial negativity.

Just something to be aware of

There is a decided drama speak, just as there is a decided anime speak. While the drama speak is much less pronounced, at least the ones set in modern times, nothing really compares to unscripted programs for seeing how people really talk.

I can routinely crack up Japanese customers by dropping into drama-speak, because even Japanese people are not 百パー aware of how stilted it is until it is pointed out to them

(He said, sadly realizing that now that YouTube has all the variety shows Japanese people want, it is impossible to get Gurunai at torrent sites anymore.)

Research into extended reading shows that simply reading a lot in your second language, at or below you current level, will help improve your listening skills too. If you start reading extensively, your reading and listening skills basically progress at twice the rate compared to not doing extensive reading. So my advice is to pick up some graded readers, and find interesting online texts, and start reading

ktcgx Wrote:Research into extended reading shows that simply reading a lot in your second language, at or below you current level, will help improve your listening skills too. If you start reading extensively, your reading and listening skills basically progress at twice the rate compared to not doing extensive reading.

Do you have a source for that?

ktcgx Wrote:Research into extended reading shows that simply reading a lot in your second language, at or below you current level, will help improve your listening skills too. If you start reading extensively, your reading and listening skills basically progress at twice the rate compared to not doing extensive reading. So my advice is to pick up some graded readers, and find interesting online texts, and start reading

I've been doing extensive reading for a couple of years now, and I have to suggest that people take this with a grain of salt. While yes, it has helped my understanding of the spoken language, this is mostly just because I'm processing phrases more quickly; it doesn't help with the actual listening at all. It feel almost like I'm in the same boat as my grandfather, who can only hear a bit, and only through one ear: if I know what the conversation is about, and can expect what's coming next, I can understand things without any difficulty, but as soon as something is said that I wasn't expecting (even if I know the words), I'm lost.
The reason I draw this parallel is because while my grandfather can still hear somewhat, it's difficult for him to understand what's being said, due to his deafness (he claims everyone mumbles, even if they're actually speaking loudly, so I assume vocal stress and syllables seem poorly defined on top of any problems with volume); in my case, I could hear spoken Japanese, but it was difficult to understand because I had difficulty hearing the defining vocal patterns of spoken Japanese even when I knew every word that was being said.

What has really helped me is listening to things that I can follow even if I slip up on listening. I've been watching Japanese let's plays by 2bro for a few months now, and that has helped quite a bit; since I've been gaming since I was a little kid (and tend to watch too many game related YouTube videos) I can pretty much expect the kind of things that will be commentated on, which helps keep me from getting lost. I guess it's kind of like reading manga (or picture books, if you don't like manga) when you first start reading: the content is usually pretty limited and there's a lot of visual context to draw from in case you start getting lost.
And of course, working with a tutor has helped my listening as well; I guess I'm more inclined to focus on listening if it's to understand someone speaking to me.

But yes, extensive reading has helped me to understand the language more quickly in general. It's just not going to do any good if you can't hear what's being said in the first place.

@OP
If you like VNs, they can be a good source of listening material with exact transcripts. Of course, it's not really going to help with the speaking bit. You'd have quite a limited choice if you wanted to put the audio in Anki, though...

The main source for my claim that extensive reading improves listening skills is known as the Fijian Book Flood study, conducted in 1980-1981. You can read about it in Elley and Mangubhai, 1983, 'The impact of reading on second language learning', Reading Research Quarterly, 19.1

It's old, but still totally valid.

Not trying to take anything away from that study as it applies to use as adult learners, but the case of Pacific Islanders learning English is a little different because they are already immersed in a culture that has it in the air. (Necessarily guessing about most of the particulars of that study, but having spent most of my life among non first tongue speakers of English in the Pacific.) Watching people come from the very smallest islands, in particular. Where they already speak the home island language, also the lingua franca of the island group, and often then something that works among different island groups already.

The real dividing line between those who end being actually capable in English, and those who can merely 片言 along is unfortunately a lot of AJATT-like willingness to jump into speech as it is spoken, and not feel like understanding 100% is all that important.

A non-scripted speech about a subject with some familiarity, like the "Let's play" listed above is useful. YouTube videos in particular are rarely scripted. "'I'd recommend finding something you really want to understand and knocking out the unknowns one by one." is a great idea. Finding a subject that is actually interesting enough to listen to 100 times is very helpful.

Breaking it down into smaller bits for practice, though a great way to teach your tongue how to speak, maybe isn't the best way to learn to listen though.

Because there is actual physical ability in making the tongue/mouth make the words, and in having them fall out of the mouth at times.

But the main problem with listening getting used to the unending flow of speech, and figuring how to guess at what you are missing based on the context provided by the previous 20 minutes. As the thread about "What is this bit?" shows native Japanese speakers have trouble with 聞き取り out of context.

Scripted drama shows end up being not the best way to practice listening, because actors rehearse lines, and sound engineers on TV show work to make sure every line is isolated from background noise. IRL, someone is just as likely to cough in the middle of some random sentence as not. In a drama they re-shoot the scene. Ignoring the whole fact that most dramas are shots of isolated people speaking and not shots of conversations overhead.

kapalama Wrote:Not trying to take anything away from that study as it applies to use as adult learners, but the case of Pacific Islanders learning English is a little different because they are already immersed in a culture that has it in the air. (Necessarily guessing about most of the particulars of that study, but having spent most of my life among non first tongue speakers of English in the Pacific.) Watching people come from the very smallest islands, in particular. Where they already speak the home island language, also the lingua franca of the island group, and often then something that works among different island groups already.

I'm not sure of your age (and not trying to make a heated discussion of this, so don't read an angry tone ), but this was done in the 80s when things were a lot different to the situation these days. 1980s is pre-internet, very low levels of TV penetration, and possibly even low radio penetration too. I'm not even sure there would have been access to English language radio programmes, though I assume the BBC World Service would have been operating then. The study states also that exposure to English outside of school is minimal, and that these students have only just begun the English immersion part of their school life. The study also chose rural schools specifically to limit any English exposure in the community.

ktcgx Wrote:Research into extended reading shows that simply reading a lot in your second language, at or below you current level, will help improve your listening skills too. If you start reading extensively, your reading and listening skills basically progress at twice the rate compared to not doing extensive reading. So my advice is to pick up some graded readers, and find interesting online texts, and start reading

From my own experience, I know that extensive reading has helped a lot. The more words and grammar you know, and the more experience you have in parsing meaning in an L2, the easier it will be to comprehend what you hear.

BUT (and this is a big "but"), there is still no substitute for listening practice. Even if you understand all of the words and grammar in a spoken sentence, you need experience in hearing how all of the words sound when spoken together, rapidly, in the context of a conversation. I can't count the number of times I've heard something and had it go right past my head, only to subsequently read a transcript (subtitles, book transcription, etc.) and realize that I can easily understand all of the components when I see them in writing.

"Simply" reading alone won't do it. Listening practice is vital.

Might I suggest adding passive listening to the mix? Whenever you can, put something Japanese on in the background. I live in Japan, so it's a little different than for people studying outside the environment, but as I write this the TV is on and I think the passive listening can only improve your understanding.

I was trying to explain this to my mother the other day while she was visiting. She had asked me if I could understand what the old men at a festival were yelling out. She was right in that they were barely making words and mostly yelling sounds. But once you hear something enough times, you know what they are going to say before they say it, and you hear what their intended words are whether they are speaking coherently or not. In this case I'm talking about "いらっしゃいませ" and "いかがですか？"

My point is, without specifically studying or even paying attention to the words being spoken, the sounds/intonations/stresses of the language start to stick in your head the more you listen to it. The same words are often used together and I think that the only way to get to a point where you know what will be said before it's said is to hear those combinations over and over.

So putting Japanese music, radio, news, TV, or podcasts on in the background as you do whatever it is you have to do and not worrying so much about the meanings of it will also help with listening skills in the long run. Of course this is in addition to the wonderful suggestions being offered in this thread.